This evening I’ll take a plane out of Africa for the first time in 11 months. Sound like a long time? It feels like a long time. And yet I immediately think of a story told by a development old-timer who did Peace Corps in the early 80s in Niger. His posting was rural but not inaccessible – a fellow volunteer, on the other hand, had been placed in the north, in an area where there were no roads, only open grasslands that one could venture across with the appropriate vehicle and, presumably, a local guide. This other volunteer, probably younger than I am now, was dropped off by such a vehicle and left there for two years until the same vehicle reappeared on the horizon to announce the end of his stay. Now perhaps this story has gained some flare over time but, regardless, two years in rural Niger without any sort of access to the outside world or the multitudes of comforts I take for granted in Kampala – now that’s tough to wrap my head around. Does it make this experience seem inadequate or any less real? No, but it does make me appreciate both the rapid, albeit limited / inequitable, development of the last 30 years and the resulting relative ease of doing business as a development professional in Africa.

My thoughts on going home? First to family and friends I’ve gone too long without seeing. And second, perhaps oddly, to the anonymity of being an American in America. You’ll all know where I’ve been these last 11 months, but, when I walk down the streets of D.C. tomorrow morning nobody else will have any idea that I’ve been abroad, that I’ve been living a life that some consider blog-worthy. What’s the appeal? In some sense the anonymity allows me to lower my guard – to know that I can walk down the street without catching a disproportionate number of eyes. To enter a gas station, café or pizza shop and receive the customary service – be it with a smile or otherwise – as if there is nothing out of the ordinary about my presence. Third, the cold. I’ve recently caught myself wearing flannel shirts and hoodies and then checking the weather to learn it’s 70* – I’m actually a bit nervous. Fourth, home cooked food and VT beer.

I can already anticipate seeing the beggars in the subways; their reminding me that I need not travel so far to find poverty, and me recalling that I’ve still never answered the question as to why I choose to venture abroad nonetheless.

I have a vivid image of driving home along the long open stretches of route 89 through New Hampshire – a nice rural road by any standards – a superhighway without comparison in the context of east Africa.

I promise I won’t complain about unloading the dishwasher this winter.

In going home I just might go an entire day without hearing a rooster crow. I work on the 5th floor of an office building in one of the nicer business / NGO districts of Kampala and I’d say with some confidence that there hasn’t been a single day in the last 300 without the sounds of chickens mixed with traffic.

In all likelihood I’ll go an entire week, or even four, without experiencing a power outage. “Power outage” isn’t even a term here. We now come into the office every morning and ask, hopefully, if power “is there today?” That’s a lie – most days the answer is made obvious by the presence or absence of a series of cheap petrol generators spewing a low rumble and noxious fumes on the small balcony of each office. Why? The continued aftermath of a government that emptied the treasury on a reelection campaign and the purchase of antiquated fighter jets. I’m ready to come home and reconnect with a place I love, and a place where such stories are simply not normal.

That said, am I ready to be done with Uganda? Not quite. Come January I suspect I’ll be ready to return. But I am certainly ready to come home now, if only for a month. Perhaps check back in 2012.

By some accounts World Vision is the largest NGO in the world. They are quite active in Uganda as well as many other African countries.

Below, the map of Uganda according to World Vision:

And below, the map of Uganda:

Think I’m being ridiculous? Maybe, but it’s about the equivalent putting the label for Washington D.C. somewhere in Connecticut, which would be kind of funny if you ran an organization that worked in all 50 States.

This Guardian article is about as much as I’ve read about the recent election in Zambia. It doesn’t make the outgoing President Banda sound like the people’s champion but if his words below area a fair representation then he could certainly teach his northern counterparts a thing or two:

Zambia’s Rupiah Banda bows out with grace and honourFAREWELL SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY, MR RUPIAH BWEZANI BANDA, FOURTH PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ZAMBIA,

ON FRIDAY, 23RD SEPTEMBER, 2011

“I HAVE CALLED THIS PRESS CONFERENCE TO SAY A FEW WORDS. THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN OF 2011 IS OVER. THE PEOPLE OF ZAMBIA HAVE SPOKEN AND WE MUST ALL LISTEN. SOME WILL BE HAPPY WITH WHAT THEY HAVE HEARD, OTHERS WILL NOT.

THE TIME NOW IS FOR MATURITY, FOR COMPOSURE AND FOR COMPASSION. TO THE VICTORS, I SAY THIS: YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO CELEBRATE BUT DO SO WITH A MAGNANIMOUS HEART. ENJOY THE HOUR BUT REMEMBER THAT A TERM OF GOVERNMENT IS FOR YEARS.

REMEMBER THAT THE NEXT ELECTION WILL JUDGE YOU ALSO.
TREAT THOSE WHO YOU HAVE VANQUISHED WITH THE RESPECT AND HUMILITY THAT YOU WOULD EXPECT IN YOUR OWN HOUR OF DEFEAT.

I KNOW THAT ALL ZAMBIANS WILL EXPECT SUCH BEHAVIOUR AND I HOPE IT WILL BE DELIVERED. SPEAKING FOR MYSELF AND MY PARTY, WE WILL ACCEPT THE RESULTS. WE ARE A DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND WE KNOW NO OTHER WAY.

IT IS NOT FOR US TO DENY THE ZAMBIAN PEOPLE. WE NEVER RIGGED, WE NEVER CHEATED, WE NEVER KNOWINGLY ABUSED STATE FUNDS. WE SIMPLY DID WHAT WE THOUGHT WAS BEST FOR ZAMBIA. I HOPE THE NEXT GOVERNMENT WILL ACT LIKEWISE IN YEARS TO COME.

ZAMBIAMUST NOT GO BACKWARDS, WE MUST ALL FACE THE FUTURE AND GO FORWARD AS ONE NATION. NOT TO DO SO WOULD DISHONOUR OUR HISTORY.

TO MY PARTY, TO THE MMD CANDIDATES WHO DID NOT WIN, THE LESSON IS SIMPLE. NEXT TIME WE MUST TRY HARDER.
WE FOUGHT A GOOD CAMPAIGN. IT WAS DISCIPLINED. I STILL BELIEVE WE HAD A GOOD MESSAGE AND WE REACHED EVERY PART OF THE COUNTRY.

WE TRAVELLED TO ALL NINE PROVINCES AND WE SPOKE TO ALL ZAMBIANS. TO THOSE WHO WORKED EVERY HOUR OF THE DAY, I SAY ‘THANK YOU’. YOU HAVE DONE YOUR BEST. BUT, SADLY, SOMETIMES OUR BEST IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

DO NOT BE DISHEARTENED. THE MMD WILL BE BACK. WE MUST ALL FACE THE REALITY THAT SOMETIMES IT IS TIME FOR CHANGE. SINCE 1991, THE MMD HAS BEEN IN POWER. I BELIEVE WE HAVE DONE A GOOD JOB ON BEHALF OF ALL ZAMBIANS.

FREDERICK CHILUBA LED US TO A GENUINE MULTI-PARTY STATE AND INTRODUCED THE PRIVATE SECTOR TO OUR KEY INDUSTRIES. ZAMBIA WAS LIBERATED BY AN MMD IDEAL BUT MAYBE WE BECAME COMPLACENT WITH OUR IDEALS. MAYBE WE DID NOT LISTEN, MAYBE WE DID NOT HEAR.

DID WE BECOME GREY AND LACKING IN IDEAS? DID WE LOSE MOMENTUM? OUR DUTY NOW IS TO GO AWAY AND REFLECT ON ANY MISTAKES WE MAY HAVE MADE AND LEARN FROM THEM. IF WE DO NOT, WE DO NOT DESERVE TO CONTEST POWER AGAIN.

THE ZAMBIA WE KNOW TODAY WAS BUILT BY AN MMD GOVERNMENT. WE KNOW OUR PLACE IN HISTORY AND WE KNOW THAT WE CAN COME BACK TO LEAD AGAIN IN THE FUTURE. A NEW LEADERSHIP WILL BE CHOSEN, AND THAT LEADERSHIP WILL BE FROM THE YOUNGER GENERATION.

MY GENERATION… THE GENERATION OF THE INDEPENDENCE STRUGGLE– MUST NOW GIVE WAY TO NEW IDEAS; IDEAS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY. FROM THIS DEFEAT, A NEW, YOUNGER MMD WILL BE RE-BORN. IF I CAN SERVE THAT RE-BUILDING, THEN I WILL.

I MUST THANK MY CABINET FOR DELIVERING ON OUR PROMISES. WE DID A LOT OF GOOD FOR ZAMBIA. MANY OF OUR PROJECTS WILL BLOSSOM INTO BRIGHT FLOWERS. SOME OF YOU WILL BE BACK TO SERVE ZAMBIA AGAIN – I KNOW YOU WILL DO YOUR BEST FOR YOUR PARTY AND FOR YOUR COUNTRY.
TO THE CIVIL SERVANTS AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS, IT HAS BEEN A PRIVILEGE TO SERVE WITH YOU. WE HAVE WORKED MANY LONG HOURS TOGETHER. WE DID IT NOT FOR OURSELVES BUT FOR ZAMBIA. SERVE YOUR NEXT MASTERS AS YOU DID ME, AND ZAMBIA WILL BE IN GOOD HANDS.

I MUST THANK MY FAMILY AND MY WIFE. THEY HAVE STOOD BY ME AND I CANNOT ASK FOR MORE LOYALTY THAN THAT WHICH THEY HAVE DISPLAYED. I LOVE YOU ALL DEARLY AND I WILL ALWAYS BE IN YOUR DEBT.

BEING PRESIDENT IS HARD WORK, IT TAKES LONG HOURS OF WORK. AND BECAUSE OF IT, I HAVE NOT ALWAYS BEEN THERE FOR YOU. YET, STILL YOU WERE THERE FOR ME.

WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS THE DEPTH OF MY LOVE FOR YOU ALL. ALL I ASK IS THAT MY FAMILY CONTINUES TO SERVE ZAMBIA AS I HAVE SOUGHT TO DO.

BUT MY GREATEST THANKS MUST GO TO THE ZAMBIAN PEOPLE. WE MAY BE A SMALL COUNTRY ON THE MIDDLE OF AFRICA BUT WE ARE A GREAT NATION. SERVING YOU HAS BEEN A PLEASURE AND AN HONOUR. I WISH I COULD HAVE DONE MORE, I WISH I HAD MORE TIME TO GIVE.

OUR POTENTIAL IS GREAT. OUR RESOURCES ARE IMPRESSIVE.
I URGE YOU ALL NOW TO RALLY BEHIND YOUR NEW PRESIDENT.
YES, WE MAY HAVE DIFFERENT IDEAS BUT WE BOTH WANT THE SAME THING – A BETTER ZAMBIA.

NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR VIOLENCE AND RETRIBUTION.
NOW IS THE TIME TO UNITE AND BUILD TOMORROW’S ZAMBIA TOGETHER. ONLY BY WORKING TOGETHER CAN WE ACHIEVE A MORE PROSPEROUS ZAMBIA.

IN MY YEARS OF RETIREMENT, I HOPE TO WATCH ZAMBIA GROW. I GENUINELY WANT ZAMBIA TO FLOURISH. WE SHOULD ALL WANT ZAMBIA TO FLOURISH. SO, I CONGRATULATE MICHAEL SATA ON HIS VICTORY.

I HAVE NO ILL FEELING IN MY HEART, THERE IS NO MALICE IN MY WORDS. I WISH HIM WELL IN HIS YEARS AS PRESIDENT.
I PRAY HIS POLICIES WILL BEAR FRUIT.

BUT NOW IT IS TIME FOR ME TO STEP ASIDE. NOW IS THE TIME FOR A NEW LEADER. MY TIME IS DONE. IT IS TIME FOR ME TO SAY ‘GOOD BYE’.

MAY GOD WATCH OVER THE ZAMBIAN PEOPLE AND MAY HE BLESS OUR BEAUTIFUL NATION.

Somalia is facing a tragedy – a situation so bad that one academic is quoted in the Times as saying, “We’ve lost this round. The numbers are going to be horrifying. We’re too late.” The number he is referring to is the estimate of deaths for the coming months: 750,000.

There’s a small but compelling number of articles on the situation, the Times’ piece might actually be the best.

Unsurprisingly this seems to not have made the news cycle back home. I’ve also barely heard discussion about it here. Feels oddly like this could be one of those things that gets a lot of press in a month or two and then we expats will all wake up one day to realize that we were in the region for one of those humanitarian tragedies that people will remember. One of those things that galvanizes grandiose responses from world leaders – after the fact.

I spent the better part of the past week in western Kenya checking out the scale-up of IPA’s Safe Water Program. This is one of the development interventions that IPA has evaluated and declared a “Proven Impact” project. One of the things a lot of folks don’t realize about IPA is that when something does work we’re pretty big on seeing it go to scale – so instead of reaching a study sample of maybe 500 or even 5,000, taking the same intervention and trying to reach entire districts, countries, or even regions. It’s exciting stuff but brings with it it’s own set of challenges.

Those four days were really the first time I’ve spent in Kenya since I studied there in 2008. It was really nice to be back – I guess I can’t say whether it’s just a little change of pace from Uganda or whether there’s actual some intrinsic difference but it was refreshing nonetheless. I can understand maybe a third of the Kiswahili spoken around me, which is a third more than I understand of any local language in Uganda; the food is definitely better; tuk-tuks are awesome; fewer calls of mzungu in the village; and a little bit more of a spring in the step.

One interesting thing – crossing the border from Uganda to Kenya you fill out a 5 by 7 inch immigration card which they barely glance at before picking up the rubber stamp and attempting to punch a hole in your passport. However, returning to Uganda through the dusty little border town of Busia you now receive the same high-tech treatment promised at any international arrivals terminal in the States. Metal detectors, fingerprint scanners, the little camera, 3M passport scanners, computers, the whole works – which works fine until the internet goes down, which of course it does at regular intervals. It’s also just amazing to see what the government of Uganda is spending funds on these days.

Perhaps the biggest indication that I was back in Uganda was getting cut in the queue by a full grown man who then looked at me and said, oh, I’m sorry, as if he hadn’t noticed that he had been standing behind me for the last five minutes.

I’ve started a little pet project of making hammocks from the brightly colored kitenge wax-prints that are ubiquitous to this region. And by making I really mean I go to the market downtown, buy 60 yards of cloth and twenty sisal ropes at a time, take it all to the seamstress out in front of my apartment and ask her to stitch them up. The costs break down to about $10 for materials, $3 for the seamstress, and a few hours of my time (worth an unknown amount at this point). I’ve been selling them to expat friends for about $20. They are not exactly flying off the shelf but I’ve sold 8 so far and I suspect sales will grow. I’ve quickly learned that offering free installation helps – I guess some people need a little help with their lazy habits.

We’ve stress tested them to 400lbs. plus and they seem pretty stable – that said, it occurred to me that there’s very little upside of putting a label on an item that may one day drop someone on their backside. With that strong endorsement, I will be taking orders for holiday shopping if anyone is interested. And this is certainly not the last post that will be written from this hammock on the balcony. (photos coming soon – as in, some other time when I bother to get out of the hammock)

… in Kampala. Nope, not a shortage of water, not a burst pipe or anything, we just forgot to pay the bill and they shut us off. Nothing says you’ve reached adulthood quite like failing to pay a water bill. Of course we went down asap and paid the balance and then some but I naturally assumed they would just process it at their leisure and come open the tap again. Wrong again. Fortunately Matt had the good sense to call the toll-free customer service line (I didn’t know toll-free existed in this country) and they immediately sent a plumber – they even apologized for the delay – for a country where customer service is not really a thing we were mighty impressed – and very grateful for a hot shower again. Also a nice reminder of how quickly I’ve become accustomed to the easy life in Kampala..

Yes, it’s been a long time without posts. I’m going to try to ease back into it with more smaller posts which might spur larger more thoughtful posts from time to time.

I’ve been away from the blog for more than a few weeks. A friend recently shuttered her “life in Uganda” blog on the anniversary of her arrival in the country – I am thinking I will stick with this but am not sure how frequently or exactly what topics will come up. Regardless of what I promise it will largely be a matter of when the mood strikes me, frankly I’ve got more going on now, both work wise and extracurricular, than I did for most of the spring.

I certainly have not kept quiet for lack of material. Kampala has been interesting of late. As I mentioned before, the government is broke. Soon after the Shilling plummeted it was announced that the government has failed to pay private power companies the better part of the electricity bill for the last three months which led to load shedding throughout Kampala (and likely extended blackouts outside the city) which prompted the city’s merchants to call a two day strike. The matatu drivers also struck for two days leaving thousands of Ugandans with no real economical means of getting to work. Boda drivers doubled their prices and had a field day. It’s so easy to talk about these things as “oh, life in Uganda” but really it comes down to the government having abused the treasury to ensure a landslide victory for the president in last February’s election. And that glaringly obvious detail is something people are quite comfortable discussing and seem to accept. Museveni actually wrote a rather wacky op-ed in the Monitor where he simultaneously proclaimed that a) Uganda would prosper through export led growth due to a weaker Shilling and, b) that Uganda must increase production and exports in order to ensure that the Shilling will rebound against foreign currencies. I’m not a macroeconomist but neither is he. Piece here.

Tomorrow’s the final day of the Ghana edition of IPA’s annual training for new staff. IPA trainings are kind of like nerd camps for development types. Try as we might, most casual conversations are interspersed with the words: survey, random, measurement, impact, data, sample, random, significance, field, random and power. The five day program includes some beginning sessions on why we do what we do and then gets into some rather technical details on how we go about managing field research, specifically randomized control trials. I came over in part to lead a session on electronic data collection (using computers / smartphones) which was pretty interesting and perhaps the only somewhat contentious discussion of the week. There are two competing hardware / software solutions being widely used by IPA and the primary issue of contention is that nobody, myself included, understands both. There’s the Blaise camp and the Pendragon Forms camp and trying to figure out exactly which is best in which instances, and the limitations of each, has been very interesting. Frankly it sounds like if you have a lot of time and some programming experience you can do a lot with Blaise, which runs on netbooks. That said, Pendragon is far simpler to program, runs on smartphones / PDAs, and there isn’t anything in a 1,000+ question survey that we cannot program.

Ghana is interesting, the food is a huge step above the Ugandan cuisine, Accra feels like a huge sprawling town with a good size middle class, and the beach, well, the beach is always nice. Soon it’s back to Uganda and work, which is going well and I’ll write more about later.

That said, the issue is of interest to me. From people on the ground there is ethnic cleansing of the Nuba people ongoing in Southern Kordofan, the southernmost region of northern Sudan. This while the border region of Abyei captures headlines of various fonts as both north and south positioned themselves to fight for what seems to be largely a symbolic oil field. That I first heard of all this via NYTimes is an indicator that I’m behind the times. But it’s real, and really ugly.

In other news, the dollar appreciated about 10% against the Ugandan shilling in the last two days. Rumor has it the treasury is broke. If I can actually figure out a better explanation than that maybe I’ll have a post for the weekend. That’s one nice day for aid workers paid in dollars, likely followed by many hard days for everyone else.

Mom, Dad, Mike and cousin Alice, recently came to visit for a two week tour of Uganda and Rwanda. It was great to see the family and introduce them to this place that’s now become familiar to me. Two weeks of vacation wasn’t half bad either. Here’s the highlights reel – after two consecutive red-eye flights they were pretty content to take it easy in Kampala for the first day. Mike and Alice crashed in my new apartment and Mom and Dad were just up the road in a hotel. For anyone wondering, there isn’t a ton to occupy a tourist’s time in Kampala. The next morning we started out at the big Gaddafi Mosque and then ventured into the depths of downtown. I guess I wanted them to get a sense of the chaos of the city, but I might have gone a little overboard with a walk past the old taxi park (image here). But we survived and made it up to the big craft market, which mom proceeded to devastate. My haggling skills, which I’d like to think have improved in the last year, were simply no match for the mzungu family premium. Ethiopian dinner was a first for the family – dinner sans utensils was amusing.

Our first of many long drives was up to Murchinson Falls, probably the most prominent national park in Uganda. Vacation in Uganda, we came to learn, involves a lot of early morning wakeups. That said, the pre-sunrise departures were well worth it:

Three elephants

Leopard in a tree

After two days in the park we loaded up for a long haul – all told we spent 11 hours traveling from Murchinson to Kibale NP, of which a luxurious 20 miles were paved. We stopped ever so briefly at URDT to stretch our legs and have a look around. We made it to Ndali Lodge at dusk – the lodge is beautiful and set above two of the region’s crater lakes but felt, I thought, a bit like traveling back in time to visit an old colonial estate. The following morning was chimpanzee time. I did the chimp trekking last year but didn’t have a camera with me at the time. We saw this guy in a tree for a while but learned that on the overcast mornings, such as that one, the chimps spend more time high in the trees. Eventually he did swing down out of the trees and took off – seeing these animals move through the dense forest is a pretty awesome sight.

Chimp in a tree

Sunday (yes, just at the end of week one) we headed to Kamwenge. I showed off my old apartment, checked out an installed and full BOB rainwater bag, toured the market, and then joined my friend Frank and his family for dinner at their house. It was a pretty incredible experience for my family. So often there’s no good way (but plenty of bad ways) for tourists to see how people really live and this was a chance to not just see how my friend’s family lives, but actually get to know them even if only for an evening. After sharing three chickens and some rather poignant stories we headed across the street to the bar to shoot some pool, a national pastime. The following morning we were back on the road headed to Lake Bunyonyi. Booyna Amagara is a backpackers paradise on an island in the middle of this beautiful lake, and, as a plus, they also have some great thatched geodomes for a nicer campy experience. We were all ready to sit and relax for a day or two and did just that – I have to admit that if the stress of learning to play bridge was the hardest part of the day then that’s a win.

Next stop, northern Rwanda for gorilla trekking. I felt a different vibe almost immediately upon crossing the border – Rwanda is crowded, people fill the rural roads and barely bother to step aside for passing cars. The lodge bragged about a fireplace in each room and big comforters – being (moderately) cold has become a refreshing experience.

Gorillas. We first walked through terraced farm fields for maybe 45 minutes, I was feeling the altitude (I like to think). We then entered the forest and followed a series of small paths to nowhere and then proceeded to bushwhack for another 30 minutes before finding the trackers with the group. As we approached we saw one through the undergrowth, and then two more directly on the path, and then, as if on cue, this group of 14 gorillas assembled in a small clearing and posed for us for nearly an hour straight. I think I took more photos in that one hour than in my previous year in Uganda combined.

Gorilla

Silverback with baby / fluffball

That evening we continued on to Kigali – between the size of the country and the incredible road network crossing Rwanda from north to south is probably no more than an easy five hours. The following morning we ate breakfast at the Hotel des Milles Collines, of Hotel Rwanda fame, and then managed to walk all of downtown Kigali in under an hour. Kigali is small, orderly, clean and growing. That afternoon we visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial. The memorial is very well designed and informative but I really wasn’t moved as I had expected I might be. I guess for me, especially being there for just a few days, it’s still nearly impossible to internalize that the genocide actually did take place on those streets and in my lifetime. While there are now dozens of books on Rwanda, we read A Thousand Hills and I would say it’s definitely worth reading before a visit. It’s probably a better book about Rwanda than any written on Uganda. That Saturday evening we flew back to Uganda – a 33 minute flight rather than a 12 hour drive – and spent the night in an airport hotel. The following morning it poured rain, a rarity in June, as I dropped the family at the airport and headed back to Kampala. And then I slept.

Family on safari

It was a blast and although not someplace they would have otherwise visited I think the family enjoyed the experience. More visitors are welcomed..